I am sure someone will shout this down very quickly but the talk of models, sustainability and building a squad got me thinking about the "successful" teams we have had over the last 30 years and how they were built. I was actually quite surprised in my own conclusions!
Let me start at the latest and work backwards.
1) Last seasons play off winners. Of the 11 that started at Wembley 1 was a genuine academy player, 2 were brought into the u23 set up, 2 were "legacy" signings and the other 6 made their debut that season. Pearce and Williams came on and made it 7 out of 13 that had made their debuts that season.
2) Chris Powell's record breakers. BWP was bought in the previous January. Other than him Johnny Jackson was the only non academy player, that was key to that season. All the rest were signed that season.
3) Going slightly out of order now but the 98 play off winners, 7 of the 11 debuted that season, from those that didn't Kinsella and K Jones were the only two that were bought. The other two being Newton and Rufus.
4) Curbs' championship winning team. Only 24 months later but more than half the play off final team had gone or been replaced.
There is a point to this post and a question.
If your not going, all out, for promotion, can you afford to pay for top class championship players just to stay up? Can you build a team over 4 or 5 years?
By and large those teams were built in 18 months, or less. You could say that both Bowyer and Curbs built on previous success, but they did so with very different teams.
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